There were four candidates: Perry, Democrat Chris Bell, Friedman, and Carole Keeton Strayhorn. The four of them had a couple of debates, and it became blatantly obvious that Friedman was "running" for governor solely for the purpose of amusing himself, inasmuch as he couldn't articulate a basic policy position on anything. As the election drew closer, it became very clear that Perry was in danger of losing to Bell. Democrats (and Friedman is closer to a Democrat than a Republican) pleaded with Friedman to drop out and support Bell, seeing as how he (Friedman) had no chance of winning and Bell had a real shot at getting Perry, the suckiest suck who ever sucked at being governor, out. Friedman refused. Perry won re-election with only 39%, and Texas does not provide for run-offs.

With Friedman out, easily 80% or more of his vote would have gone to Bell. And that would have been the margin of victory. But no, Kinky decided to keep going, trying to be funny and failing miserably, and farked the whole thing up. The only good thing that came out of that election is that Perry was shown to be vulnerable inasmuch as 61% of Texans voted against him. But then, of course, Bill White (a good candidate) ran a completely half-assed campaign against Perry in 2010 and got his ass kicked.

So yes, I believe that Kinky Friedman bears a lot of responsibility for Perry sticking around for the last 7 years.

There were four candidates: Perry, Democrat Chris Bell, Friedman, and Carole Keeton Strayhorn. The four of them had a couple of debates, and it became blatantly obvious that Friedman was "running" for governor solely for the purpose of amusing himself, inasmuch as he couldn't articulate a basic policy position on anything. As the election drew closer, it became very clear that Perry was in danger of losing to Bell. Democrats (and Friedman is closer to a Democrat than a Republican) pleaded with Friedman to drop out and support Bell, seeing as how he (Friedman) had no chance of winning and Bell had a real shot at getting Perry, the suckiest suck who ever sucked at being governor, out. Friedman refused. Perry won re-election with only 39%, and Texas does not provide for run-offs.

With Friedman out, easily 80% or more of his vote would have gone to Bell. And that would have been the margin of victory. But no, Kinky decided to keep going, trying to be funny and failing miserably, and farked the whole thing up. The only good thing that came out of that election is that Perry was shown to be vulnerable inasmuch as 61% of Texans voted against him. But then, of course, Bill White (a good candidate) ran a completely half-assed campaign against Perry in 2010 and got his ass kicked.

So yes, I believe that Kinky Friedman bears a lot of responsibility for Perry sticking around for the last 7 years.

Mm hmm. Just like:

It's not your fault when you're late to work because you left 15 minutes later than usual, it's everyone else who's out clogging the roads at the same time. It's not like they all had to get where they were going right at that time. They bear a lot of the responsibility.

It's not your favorite baseball team's fault they didn't make the playoffs. If the gutter team they lost to in two of the last three games of the season had just thrown the games (since they had no chance anyway), your team would have won the pennant. That other team bears a lot of the responsibility.

If only the studio behind Silver Linings Playbook had decided to wait until 2013 to release the film or not submitted it for consideration, enough of their votes would have gone to Zero Dark Thirty and it would have won the Best Picture Oscar. It's not like that film would have won anyway. They bear a lot of the responsibility. Fark those guys, bunch of jerks.

Damn these spoilers who come along and deny the anointed their rightful place.

It's not your fault when you're late to work because you left 15 minutes later than usual, it's everyone else who's out clogging the roads at the same time. It's not like they all had to get where they were going right at that time. They bear a lot of the responsibility.

It's not your favorite baseball team's fault they didn't make the playoffs. If the gutter team they lost to in two of the last three games of the season had just thrown the games (since they had no chance anyway), your team would have won the pennant. That other team bears a lot of the responsibility.

If only the studio behind Silver Linings Playbook had decided to wait until 2013 to release the film or not submitted it for consideration, enough of their votes would have gone to Zero Dark Thirty and it would have won the Best Picture Oscar. It's not like that film would have won anyway. They bear a lot of the responsibility. Fark those guys, bunch of jerks.

Damn these spoilers who come along and deny the anointed their rightful place.

No, your point is pretty clear. You blame Perry's win on Friedman being a spoiler rather than on Bell and White for running shiatty campaigns, which is just as stupid as blaming Nader for Gore's (and, by extension, Kerry's) loss and Perot for Bush 41's (and, by extension, Dole's) loss.

No, your point is pretty clear. You blame Perry's win on Friedman being a spoiler rather than on Bell and White for running shiatty campaigns, which is just as stupid as blaming Nader for Gore's (and, by extension, Kerry's) loss and Perot for Bush 41's (and, by extension, Dole's) loss.

If you can't win on your own merits, too farking bad.

Wrong again. Bell ran a very good campaign, getting closer to Perry than anyone thought possible, and could easily win on the merits if Friedman was siphoning off half a million votes that would normally go to Bell for no other purpose than to be a smart ass. If Friedman was running as a serious, legitimate candidate, capable of articulating legitimate policy positions, that would have been fine. Friedman did none of those things. Friedman didn't even TRY to do those things. This was some kind of bullshiat performance art that had no promising end. And on top of that, as I mentioned and you conveniently ignored, Friedman is basically a Democrat. He torpedoed his own party's candidate just to satiate his ego. If he had dropped out and told his supporters, "look, thank you for everything, but Chris Bell is the guy to finally get rid of Perry," I guarantee it would have worked.

And my only point about Bill White is that, one cycle after demonstrating Perry was at least vulnerable, he ran a shiatty campaign and didn't even come close to knocking Perry off.

No, your point is pretty clear. You blame Perry's win on Friedman being a spoiler rather than on Bell and White for running shiatty campaigns, which is just as stupid as blaming Nader for Gore's (and, by extension, Kerry's) loss and Perot for Bush 41's (and, by extension, Dole's) loss.

If you can't win on your own merits, too farking bad.

Wrong again. Bell ran a very good campaign, getting closer to Perry than anyone thought possible, and could easily win on the merits if Friedman was siphoning off half a million votes that would normally go to Bell for no other purpose than to be a smart ass. If Friedman was running as a serious, legitimate candidate, capable of articulating legitimate policy positions, that would have been fine. Friedman did none of those things. Friedman didn't even TRY to do those things. This was some kind of bullshiat performance art that had no promising end. And on top of that, as I mentioned and you conveniently ignored, Friedman is basically a Democrat. He torpedoed his own party's candidate just to satiate his ego. If he had dropped out and told his supporters, "look, thank you for everything, but Chris Bell is the guy to finally get rid of Perry," I guarantee it would have worked.

And my only point about Bill White is that, one cycle after demonstrating Perry was at least vulnerable, he ran a shiatty campaign and didn't even come close to knocking Perry off.

The fact that his campaign was a well-known joke makes it even less excusable to blame him. Blame the people who voted for him and/or Bell for not being able to overcome an obvious joker, not Friedman. If Bell couldn't convince a fellow Democrat to concede and support him, that doesn't speak well for how effective he would have been as Governor. Bell lost by 406,000 votes, so he would have needed 80% of Friedman's votes to even come close. You assume all those votes "would normally go to Bell" but there is no evidence that would have happened; you don't even know that enough Friedman voters would have voted at all at that point, nor that they would have voted for him anyway just for laughs. And in your run-off scenario, you're conveniently leaving out the high probability that Strayhorn voters would have largely gone for Perry, so again there is nothing to indicate that Bell would have won even a two-way race. But a three-way race is fine as long as the spoiler is for the other guy, right?

So looking this guy up... sounds like a real winner. He took third place in a mayoral race (and I don't see you complaining about him forcing his fellow Democrat into a run-off... karma's a biatch, ain't it?), then lost his own Congressional seat to a primary challenger, and then the guy couldn't even win a state senate seat in a run-off. If you're going to blame anyone else for contributing to Bell's woes, Tom Delay would be a much more legitimate target.

But yeah, it's all Friedman's fault. Bell did everything right, as is made clear from all of his other runs at public office.